


Astronauts Don't Cuddle

by waterbird13



Series: Tumblr Fics [183]
Category: The Martian
Genre: Cuddling, Gen, Hurt Mark, touch starvation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-17
Updated: 2016-09-17
Packaged: 2018-08-15 10:45:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8053321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waterbird13/pseuds/waterbird13
Summary: Mark's healing. Sure, he's still a mess, but healing. Basically the biggest concern left is the touch starvation.Astronauts don't ask other astronauts to cuddle, but Mark could really, really use it.





	Astronauts Don't Cuddle

**Author's Note:**

> This is another piece from Tumblr. I feel like I am posting a ton of Martian posts lately.
> 
> Mark is injured but healing, and touch starved.

Everything should be going great for Mark Watney. He should be at the top of the world, in all honestly. He has a real bed, not the converted back of a rover or a mis-used, modified, frankenstein’s monster of a pup tent. He has food, and it’s still space food, but it’s plentiful and they’re working him back up to a full diet. There’s running water on the Hermes. And as beat to hell as the ship is, Mark is reasonably confident it will hold to get them to Earth, and he doesn’t have to live in fear of dying constantly.

His ribs, painful as they still are, are even starting to heal. His knee is a little fucked up–not so bad in zero G, but anytime he goes anywhere with artificial gravity, the pressure makes his teeth grit a bit. He’s got a whole host of other issues, ranging from his internal organs looking oddly misshappen to being completely malnourished to his bloody gums to the whole breathing poorly thing. But they’re working on it, and if Beck says he’s on the mend, then he believes it.

No, he really should be on top of the world. Everything is going his way. He gets to live, get of that damn planet and go home. After that, everything should be small potatoes (he shudders at the thought).

But there’s one more thing.

Every member of the crew has touched him. Beck, obviously, he’s Mark’s doctor. And Lewis pulled him in, the first human contact he had in eighteen months. Everyone’s gotten in a hug, a slap on the back, a shoulder squeeze.

It’s not enough.

All Mark wants is to be touched, to be held. Honestly, he wants to be held like his Mom held him after a nightmare when he was a little boy. He wants to be touched, held, for as long as possible, by as many people as possible.

But he can’t just _ask_  the crew that. For one thing, it’s weird. Astronauts do not ask other astronauts to cuddle. For another, these people have gone out of their way more than enough for him already, losing nearly two years of their lives to rescuing his sorry ass.

And finally, he’s not exactly cuddly anymore.

Right now, he’s a bony mess of sunken skin and protruding bones, and all of Beck’s assurances that they can fix that don’t make the problem go away. He’s a mess. 

So he just kind of twitches a lot, and watches his crew while they do their usual daily routines. He wraps himself up tight in his blanket at night, and tells himself firmly that he is a goddamned adult, a respected astronaut, that he survived _Mars_  by his lonesome, and he can certainly survive the ride back to Earth without molesting his crew mates.

Johanssen realizes first. Which is not what Mark expects, although he doesn’t really know what he did expect. She drops food into his lap one day, then sits down right next to him, pressing hip to knee. And it feels good.

She must pass the message around, or at least Mark assumes she does, because when even Commander Lewis is giving him hugs and sitting close, he knows something has to be up.

And then it devolves from there, into what basically amounts to puppy piles every minute they’re not working. Johanseen is lying with her head in Mark’s lap, her body draped across Beck and Martinez, and her feet landing in Vogel’s lap. Lewis is on Mark’s other side, looking at them all, fondly amused.

“That can’t be comfortable,” Mark says.

Johanssen wiggles around, settling in deeper. “Hmm, why not?” she asks.

“Because I’m basically a pile of bone!” Mark exclaims.

“Body fat’s up,” Beck interjects. “Only gonna get better.”

Martinez reaches over and pats Mark’s bony shoulder. “Look at it this way,” he says. “You can go back to Earth, retire, drink beer and eat McDonalds, get yourself a big old belly. Then you’ll be great for cuddling. Until then, we’ll put up with your bony ass.”

Vogel makes a face. “Not McDonalds,” he objects.

Mark decides he doesn’t want to even _know_  about the chemical makeup of McDonalds that clearly has Vogel so concerned, and laughs at Martinez instead. “I’ll settle for some actual body fat,” he says.

“You’ll get it,” Beck promises.

Johanssen snuggles in deeper. “Well, your sweater’s comfy, anyways.”

NASA sweaters are great. Shitty food, great sweaters. It’s a trade-off.

Lewis reaches over and rubs at the back of Mark’s neck. “Relax,” she tells him firmly. “We got you now.”

This is why she’s in charge, Mark thinks. She knows what she’s talking about.


End file.
